Masséna – Birding New Jersey

In 1846, Dr. Thomas B. Wilson, one of the great early benefactors of the Academy of Natural Sciences, asked his brother in England “to make a collection of birds” for the Philadelphia institution. Edward Wilson set about the task with his usual industry, and soon came to J.E. Grey at the British Museum.

Grey suggested, sensibly enough, that rather than assemble specimens piecemeal from dealers, Wilson purchase one of the several complete collections then on the market.

I mentioned two or three, among the others Prince Masséna’s collection in Paris…. I said that I intended to go to Paris in a very short time, and that, if he liked it, I would see what could be done.

Wilson, fearing that that famous cabinet would be beyond even his lavish budget, hesitated, but a few days later agreed to give it a try. Grey arrived in Paris,

and immediately sent a note to the Prince Masséna, saying that I was willing to purchase the collection of birds … and that I was prepared to pay for it in ready money. While sitting at dinner at the table d’hôte, an aide-de-camp came in, all green and gold, with a cocked hat and a large white feather, to inquire for me, with a message from the Prince to inquire what I intended by ready money, and … if I was ready to pay the sum that evening.

The banks were already closed, but the next morning, Wilson

gave his highness a cheque … and he gave me a receipt and handed me the keys of the cases, and I sealed them up, the affair being settled in a few minutes.

Wilson was “much pleased with the purchase,” as one might imagine, and the collection, “a very large and good one,” is now one of the greatest treasures held in any American museum.

The French ornithologists of the nineteenth century were always complaining about one thing or another in what was by then the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle.

I suspect that much of their carping was little more than vaguely oedipal resentment of Buffon, who had so greatly dominated the institution back when it was still the Jardin des plantes; but when it came to the presentation of certain of the specimens, they seem to have had some legitimate grievances.

When René Primevère Lesson came to write the account of the ruby-throated hummingbird for his Histoire naturelle des oiseaux-mouches, he found — a surprise to me — that

skins of this species are very rare in European collections. Our description will be based on three specimens in very fresh plumage in the possession of the Duke of Rivoli,

him of multifarious hummingbird fame.

And why did Lesson not simply use the specimens in the Museum?

The one specimen in the Museum galleries appears to have undergone a change as a result of sulfurous fumigation, as the ruby of the throat has transformed into a clear yellowish topaz.

Forty years earlier, Buffon had described what was presumably the same individual in very different terms:

The throat has the brilliance and fire of a ruby, mixed with a golden color when seen from the side, and a dark garnet color when seen from below.

It is unlikely that the structural colors of a hummingbird’s gorget would be destroyed by even the most intense fumigation.

Maybe the bird was dusty.

Or more likely, Lesson is complaining, as so many others of his contemporaries complained, about the rigidity with which keepers and curators in the Museum refused to allow scientists and scholars to open the cases for a closer look at the specimens. Forced to look at the bird through glass, at an inflexible angle, Lesson found the ruby, the gold, and the garnet of this species reduced — figuratively, at least — to topaz.

Tag: Masséna

Buying Prince Masséna’s Birds

Ruby-throats in Paris